INTERVIEW VIEW

InterviewINTER Rediscovering Saab’s Heritage and Identity An Interview with Victor Muller, Executive Founder and Chief Executive Offi cer, Spyker N.V., and Chairman, Saab Automobile

wholly owned subsidiary in 2000. When you fi rst came in, did the em- N.V. of the Netherlands acquired the ployees get your vision early on? company in February 2010 from GM as an inde- Loud and clear. saab was occupied by Gm pendently run business. Saab Automobile AB em- but these people were never converted. so ploys approximately 3,800 staff in , where when we liberated them, they were ecstatic, it operates world-class production and technical because they finally felt they had an oppor- development facilities. tunity to be themselves again and they didn’t have to make compromises because of their What made you feel the opportunity to ac- parent company. quire Saab was the right fi t? How broad is your target market? Throughout my career, I had always run It’s defi nitely a niche market. saab has no larger companies. Having started spyker in aspiration to become another bmW, audi, or 2000 from scratch, I saw an opportunity to mercedes. They all now produce more than a bring spyker into a much more corporate, million cars. Where audi was 20 years ago is structured world. where we are now. at spyker, we still have to meet all the legal We’re basically down to zero in the u.s. Victor Muller with a Saab Automobile requirements and challenges that all makers and now are the most rapidly growing brand in face with only 130 people rather than with the that premium Teutonic market segment. 4,000 people at saab. There is no exemption for saab doesn’t need to make one million cars EDITORS’ NOTE Dutch businessman Victor Muller being small. to survive. When we make 120,000 cars, we’re studied law at Leiden University and graduated in If you’re small, you can only make a pre- home free. 1984. He then became a lawyer for the Amsterdam mium product because you need to have the mar- spyker could not have bought saab at a bet- offi ce of Baker & McKenzie. In 1989, he joined the gin to pay for development costs, which are huge. ter time, because everybody was willing to sell management team of offshore company Heerema It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that every imaginable kind of technology to anyone in Leiden. A management buyout made him part allowed me to buy a company like saab for who had the cash to buy it. owner of salvage and towing company Wijsmuller what it would have cost me to build a wind tun- That allowed us to get bmW engine in IJmuiden. From 1992 onwards, he led several nel alone. This economic crisis caused General technology and why we can sell the tech- companies, such as Emergo Mode Groep (Emergo motors to end up in receivership and, in or- nology of the previous generation to beijing Fashion Group). Muller co-founded Dutch car der to survive, they had to restructure and dis- automotive for $200 million in cash. We still company Spyker Cars in 2000 and was the CEO of pose of a number of brands: , saturn, have a lot in house that we can share with the company until May 2007. He continued to work , and saab. others. for the company as Chief Designer for a period, but The advantage was saab wasn’t an inte- so saab is in a very good position to be- returned to the CEO seat later the same year, due to grated part of Gm so it had its own engineer- come a niche player alternative to bmW, audi, the split between Spyker Cars and Spyker F1 (later ing and production plans – it was a stand-alone and mercedes. It doesn’t need to or want to Force India). Muller became the Chairman of the company. make one million cars, because we would lose new company Saab Spyker Automobiles in 2010. How do you defi ne the DNA of Saab? buyers if we did. With 63 years of unabbreviated, uninter- Many with an entrepreneurial nature COMPANY BRIEF In 1914, Spyker Cars rupted car-making, the brand dna is clearly de- see opportunity but don’t always love the (www.spykercars.nl) merged with the Dutch fi ned by its swedish heritage, its aviation heritage, day to day of operations. Aircraft Factory N.V., and the racing and avia- and its culture of innovation. If you look at the because there was basically no one else tion heritage of the early cars has been carried list of fi rsts in automotive history, most everything that could run spyker properly, I decided not over to the contemporary Spykers. Handcrafted safety-related has been invented by saab. to run saab, even if our Ceo decides to retire. I in the same tradition, the cars are built for dis- so this company with its great heritage am so much better at creating the environment cerning connoisseurs who have cars built to their had, over time, seen its brand diluted by Gm for entrepreneurial growth of the business than exacting specifi cations. Every owner may follow to the point that people began to feel that saab running the business day to day. the assembly process of his or her Spyker day and was simply a glorifi ed . I can do what I’m best at, yet have the night by means of a dedicated webcam-system – being bought by a very small company company run by professionals who are better at The Spycam™ – in the factory. now makes saab the largest fi sh in a very small that than I am or ever will be. Founded in 1937 as an aircraft manu- pond and puts it in a unique position to redis- I have a very clear objective of taking facturer, Saab (Swedish Aircraft Company; cover its heritage and identity. saab to profi tability within two years and then www.saab.com) revealed its fi rst prototype pas- The only thing we need to do now is to ef- changing my role to focus entirely on design, senger car 10 years later, after the formation of the fectively communicate about the product so that marketing, and new business. and the rest Saab Car Division. In 1990, Saab Automobile AB people understand saab is here to stay, which is is in such good hands, I don’t need to worry was created as a separate company and became a a massive undertaking when you’re small. about it.• 22 Leaders volume 34, number 2